Prescription Refill Pick-Up, ATM-Style

MICHAEL GARRY

ScriptCenter kiosks allow customers quickly pick up prescription refills.

SAN DIEGO — Just as ATMs added unprecedented convenience to banking, Asteres here sees its ScriptCenter kiosk making prescription refill pick-ups a lot more convenient for retail pharmacy customers.

Introduced in 2005, the ScriptCenter holds up 560 finished prescriptions refills, allowing patients to retrieve them during busy periods and after pharmacy hours. Patients initially sign up at the pharmacy and create a user ID and password to access the kiosk. The MX model of the kiosk measures 85 inches high, 56.9 inches wide and 51.6 inches deep.

However, only 36 states have approved the use of the kiosks, and not all of those states allow after-hours pick-up, which has been criticized by some pharmacists as posing safety risks.

According to Cheryl Deysher, marketing director for Asteres, the kiosk is installed in two retail chains that she declined to identify. GoKiosk.net reported that Safeway has used the kiosks in West Coast stores and this year began rolling them out in Colorado. (Safeway did not respond to a request for comment.) Asteres has also installed the kiosks in hospitals and military bases, said Deysher.

Deysher said more than 500,000 prescriptions have been delivered to date through the kiosks, which do not hold refrigerated items. She declined to cite the cost of the kiosks.